Mole Salamanders in the Mid-Atlantic States

Heavy or prolonged rain, day and night, in the Mid-Atlantic states in March wakens spotted salamanders and wood frogs from hibernation under carpets of fallen leaves in deciduous woods. Those two species of amphibians climb up through blankets of wet leaves and proceed to little pools, called vernal ponds, that rapidly fill with rain water and snow melt, to spawn. Male wood frogs croak hoarsely, but the salamanders are silent, making them more difficult to notice.

Three kinds of related, four to eight-inch salamanders that live in this area ― Marbled, Jefferson,  and Spotted ― are called mole salamanders because of their habit of tunneling through carpets of dead and fallen leaves and soil on forest floors. There they stay moist and relatively safe while looking for invertebrate food.

All amphibians, including salamanders, must be moist to survive. If they dry they die.

Mole salamanders have lungs to live on land. But they are seldom seen on land because of their mole-like habits. As adults, however, they go to vernal ponds in woodlands during a few days and nights once a year to spawn. They are most visible to us humans during that brief time, especially at night, the time when most people are not in the woods.

The larvae of mole salamanders develop in eggs in gelatin-like masses laid in temporary puddles in the woodlands. Each half-inch larva hatches a few weeks later with four legs, a swimming tail, and a branching, external gill on each side of its neck that takes oxygen from the water. The larvae live in those pools a few months where they eat aquatic invertebrates. But they are engaged in a race to develop lungs and escape the puddles before they dry. If they lose, they die.

Now Where Did I Leave Those Eggs?

Marbled salamanders grow to be four to five inches long. They are stout-bodied and black with broad silver markings on top. Their range is southeastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, southern New York state and southern New England, though they are spottily distributed in that area.

Marbled salamander females spawn in dry depressions on leaf-covered forest floors, usually in November. Each female may lay 100 eggs, on average, and tends those eggs until the depression fills with rain water. The larvae develop in those eggs for more than four months. 

Jefferson salamanders are five to eight inches long, stocky and dark-gray, brown or black all over, with light-blue speckles on their flanks. Their range is most of Pennsylvania, southern New York and western New England. This species spawns in temporary, woodland pools within a few days from mid-February to early March, depending on air temperatures. Each female lays about 150 to 300 eggs in small, clear masses. The young hatch about a month later. 

Spotted salamanders are the most common and most commonly seen of mole salamanders in the Middle Atlantic States. Biggest of the local mole salamanders, and the most striking, spotted salamanders are six to nine inches long, chunky and dark with two rows of large yellow spots running lengthwise on their heads, backs and tails. This species spawns in vernal ponds in woods during a few days and nights during rainy weather in late February or early in March. Their jello-like egg masses are milky-white, contain scores of eggs and lie on the bottoms of woodland pools.

Even if the reader doesn't ever see these pretty and secretive salamanders in the woods, it is neat to know they exist in the Middle Atlantic States. And if they are seen in the wild, please leave them there. They are becoming less common because of loss of woodland habitat.

Photo courtesy of Kerry Wixted

Chimney Swifts

Chimney swifts are the first birds I remember seeing when I was about five years old. I lived in Lancaster City at the time and saw a group of them fluttering, soaring and twittering across the sky. And when we visited my grandparents in Lancaster, I saw flocks of them careening among each other, without collision, over rows of homes, businesses and streets during summer evenings.

Swifts summer in cities, towns and farm yards in North America where they nest down the inside of chimneys, hence their common name. They arrive in North America during April and migrate south to northern South America in September to spend the northern winter catching flying insects over South American forests. And they spend the bulk of each day, every day of their lives, catching flying insects in the sky. It is then those birds are visible to us.

Before the arrival of European people and their homes with chimneys, swifts nested down the inside of hollow, broken-off trees. These birds probably are more common today than ever in their history because there are many more chimneys in North America to nest in than there ever were hollow trees.

Pairs of swifts break off tiny twigs from trees and "glue" those twigs to the inside walls of certain unused chimneys with their own saliva, to form a platform on which they lay their three to four eggs. The young cling to their platform and are fed flying insects by their parents until they are developed enough to fly up the chimney and out on their own to snare insects from the air as they cruise along.

August is the best time to see great flocks of swifts gathering at dusk, when they are entertaining to watch. They are done raising young then and congregate into large gatherings each evening during that month and into early September, prior to zipping down a large, unused chimney for the night. As dusk deepens each late-summer evening, hordes of swifts swirl around the chimney time after time. Then a few birds dive down that large yawn, then more and more. Soon the whole twirling mass of hundreds, even thousands of swifts goes down the chimney, like smoke in reverse, without the birds colliding with each other. Before long, all the swifts are down the chimney where they cling upright and packed together on the bricks, or stones, with their tiny toenails.

A soaring swift, turning this way and that on stiff-looking, swept-back wings, is shaped like an arrow point shooting across the sky without its shaft. Their bodies, heads and tails seem to be one on long, narrow wings. But swifts don't sail in the wind all the time. They alternately soar and flutter when shooting swiftly across the sky and abruptly turning this way and that while chasing down flying insects.

Look for swifts over cities and towns in summer. They are interesting, and entertaining to watch in the sky

Photo 1 courtesy of Jim McCulloch * Photo 2 courtesy of K. Kendall

Free-ranging Chickens

When I was a child living outside of Rohrerstown in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, my dad brought home a few bantam hens and a bantam rooster. Bantams are small breeds of chickens with various colors and color patterns, making them attractive and interesting. The first spring I had those bantams, the hens all disappeared. I thought I would never see them again. But after a few weeks, they were back, each one trailing up to a dozen of the cutest, smallest chicks I ever saw. Each peep had dark fuzz with buff striping, two bright, dark eyes and stubby wings.

To this day, I like to see free-roaming groups of chickens in agricultural areas, but bantams and the taller, slim game chickens are my favorites, because of all the many breeds of chickens, they most closely resemble the red jungle fowl of southeastern Asia, the ancestor of all domestic chickens.

Red jungle fowl roosters have mostly bright-orange feathering with dark flight and tail feathers and red combs on top of their heads. Hens are light brown with darker markings, and have small combs. And red jungle fowl chicks are have dark and buff patterns on their fluff. Hens and chicks are better camouflaged than the flamboyant roosters.

Domestic roosters of all breeds crow like their wild ancestors. And both genders and their young have calls and habits, including scratching in fallen leaves and the soil for food, that are similar to their ancestors.

Some breeds of chickens, such as the white leghorns, are noted for producing abundant eggs. Other kinds are raised for meat, including Rhode Island reds and barred rocks. Years ago most chickens on small farms were free-ranging with several hens and one or a few roosters. They were kept for eggs and meat for the family. But then chickens for meat and eggs became big business. They were kept indoors, thousands to a building, in some cases each bird in its own small cage, for more efficient keeping. But those were not natural living conditions for the birds.

Today there is a demand from consumers to have eggs from free-ranging chickens available on the market. More farmers, therefore, are allowing chickens to roam free from mobile chicken houses in fields and pastures. Although a few birds may be lost to coyotes, red foxes and raccoons, free-roaming birds are cheaper and easier to feed because they forage for green plants, seeds and invertebrates on their own. Eggs and meat from those healthier, happier chickens are healthier for human consumers. And it’s enjoyable to see big flocks of chickens, both hens and roosters together, foraging across fields and pastures again.

Woohoo!

But I still enjoy best the groups of multi-colored, half-wild bantams and game chickens of different ages and both genders moving across barnyards, and through the fields like their relatives, the wild pheasants. When those birds feel they are being watched or threatened, they quietly slip into corn or hay fields to hide, just as pheasants do. And I like to see free-ranging bantams and game chicken hens with their broods of dark and buff chicks moving freely in the fields and barn yards. Those chickens are almost like wild pheasants, which adds to their beauty and appeal.

When riding through farmland, watch for free-ranging groups of chickens. They are as attractive in their human-made habitats as wildlife is.

Photo courtesy of Hunter Desportes

Some Favorite Local Crickets

Although there are several kinds of crickets and tree crickets living in southeastern Pennsylvania and through much of the eastern United States, four of them are my favorites. They are snowy tree crickets, field crickets, camel crickets and mole crickets; each species of which inhabits a niche different from its relatives. Each species eats vegetation in its particular niche. And males of all species make cheery noises by rubbing their wings together to attract females of their kinds for mating. Each species of cricket has a distinctive chirping that females of their kinds, and we, can identify. Some of these crickets are eaten by toads, frogs, skunks, small snakes, a variety of birds, and other creatures. 

Snowy Tree crickets are pale-green for camouflage in the bushes they inhabit on lawns and the edges of woodlands. They have large, transparent wings that allow them to fly from danger and to seek new food sources.

Snowy tree crickets are heard during evenings from late July through fall until the first hard frost kills them. This kind of cricket produces a loud, measured chirping that tells us the temperature, thus it is also called the "temperature cricket." To determine the temperature fairly accurately at any one time, count the number of chirps from this type of cricket in 13 seconds, and add 40. 

Field crickets are familiar to many people. They are the small, dark, abundant crickets we see among grass and other vegetation in fields and along roadsides. Males of this species begin chirping toward the end of May and continue to do so all summer. Their chirping is a happy sound that many people enjoy listening to. 

Camel crickets live under logs, rocks, and trash barrels in woodlands and wooded parks. They are pale-brown with darker markings and hunch-backed, giving them their common name. They generally are not seen until the objects they hide under are lifted or rolled over. 

Mole crickets are the most unusual, uncommon and interesting of this grouping of local crickets. They live in burrows they dig themselves in the moist soil of pastures and eat plant roots hanging down from the ceilings of those holes.

Male mole crickets begin chirping early in September. Their sounds are loud, harsh and almost sound like the croaking of some kind of frog. Some people think they are hearing a frog.

Mole crickets are actually built like moles. Their front pair of legs are large for digging in the soil. And unlike their relatives, the grasshoppers, katydids and other types of crickets, their back pair of legs are small because they can't jump in those burrows anyway.

Crickets are interesting little critters that make music during summer. Although they are difficult to spot, we can hear several kinds of them chirping.

Photo courtesy of Dmitry Baranovskiy

Hovering Hawks in Southeastern Pennsylvania

Three kinds of hawks, ospreys, American kestrels and rough-legged hawks have the habit of regularly hovering into the wind. They each have developed that trait independently of each other to remain stationary in the air as they watch for prey below. And each species is entertaining to watch. 

Ospreys are large, dark and white, fish-catching hawks that are the only species in their genus. They live world-wide, including locally during the warmer months. They soar over larger bodies of water and hover on powerfully pumping wings at various spots above it in their search for bigger fish near the surface. When prey is spotted each osprey dives and plunges into the water feet first to snare the fish in its curved, sharp talons. They are successful much of the time and use their powerful wings to pull themselves out of the water and into the wind carrying their victim. They take their prey to a tree limb or a boulder where they consume it bit by bit with their sharp beaks. Ospreys probably developed that hovering technique because there are no perches over the middle of larger bodies of water. 

American Kestrels, as species, live here the year around, raising young in cavities during the summer. These small falcons are often seen perched on roadside wires and hovering on rapidly beating wings over fields, meadows, roadsides and grassy median strips along expressways as they watch for mice and larger insects among the vegetation. Kestrels are adapted to farmland and other open country that may have few perches from which to watch for prey. Occasionally a kestrel is killed by a passing vehicle as it drops to the ground to catch a victim.

Kestrels have attractive plumages. Males have orange, black and gray patterns while females and young are brown and dark for camouflage.
 

Rough-legged Hawks nest on cliffs in the high Arctic tundra, and come south for winter, the time of year we see them in southeastern Pennsylvania. Since there are few places to perch above ground to watch for prey, rough-legs also developed the habit of hovering into the wind. Rough-legs are big raptors, but have small feet adapted to catching mice, which is their most common food. There are two color phases of them; black and dark with buff on the head and neck. Individuals of each color phase have white at the bases of their tails.

Look for these hovering hawks at the times of year indicated. They are entertaining.

Photo courtesy of David Mitchell